A £10 MILLION flood defence scheme for Tadcaster will not now be completed until at least 2026 – more than a decade after the town was devastated by the Boxing Day floods of 2015.

Councillors and business owners are furious after the Environment Agency (EA) revealed that its project to protect scores of properties from the River Wharfe will be delayed by two years because of "modelling inaccuracies".

Town, district and county councillor Don Mackay said he felt "anger and frustration, because the EA have been working on this since the 2015 flood, and quite honestly it is NOT acceptable".

He asked: “How much longer can we honestly wait for real progress to save this town from possibly more flooding over the next four to five years?”

He said the project had been awarded £10 million almost two years ago but now the agency had written to the county council to say work would not start until 2024 and would take until 2026 to complete.

The letter said surveys by specialists had indicated that the agency’s model was not workable and a further topographic survey was ongoing.

He said defences were lower on the eastern side of the river and all properties, including the town’s health centre, surgery, supermarket and businesses in Commercial Street were paying huge flood insurance premiums, if they could get cover at all. He argued that steel flood piling should simply be raised by welding 15 inches on top of the existing defences to protect Tadcaster East as a temporary measure.

Melvin Pratt, owner of Tadcaster Carpets in Commercial Street, said: “What a mess it is that Tadcaster can’t even start with flood defences, even when we have the funds to go.

“I cannot get flood insurance for my shop unless I pay £7,500 for cover, with a excess of £35,000.”

Patrick Tunney, who leads the Tadcaster flood prevention group, said: “This is the worst piece of news the town has had since the flood. Residents and businesses are struggling to comprehend this bombshell and are having difficulty in understanding why.

“The announcement to delay the scheme has caused members of the community to react from disappointment to frustration and in some cases anger.

“Five years on from the devastating flood which hit the national headlines and caused so much disruption and hardship in the community, they should have been able to make much faster progress.” He said the group supported Cllr Mackay’s call for a temporary fix on the eastern bank.

Ed Hinton, EA project manager, said its priority was to create a flood defence scheme in Tadcaster which offered the best possible level of flood protection for people and was able to withstand the increasingly extreme weather being experienced as a result of climate change.

“A recent review of the Tadcaster scheme has highlighted inaccuracies in the complex modelling used to design such defences, which will lead to a delay in the start of construction,” he said. We recognise this is deeply frustrating for everyone concerned and will work with our partners to progress work as quickly as possible.”